Hypercompendia

Everyone’s been through this I think, but you know that feeling that you might’ve lifted words from something you’ve read before?  Of course every word you write is something you’ve heard before but sometimes a particular phrase or even just the idea sort of itches your mind like something’s wrong; it didn’t come from you.  This morning I finally came right out and asked a friend if I’d stolen something from his own work.

Today’s a bit of a turning point in this new project since I’ve decided to continue with the story but am approaching it in a different way so that I don’t feel lost because I’m not filling out Writing Spaces as fluidly as I did with Paths.  The greatest thing about Storyspace is that if I peter out on one path, there are many others that may be taken further if my mind is onto them. 

Another thing I did for inspiration was to reread a portion of Paths (where I came across the phrase I’d mentioned above) and soon realized that I had to stop and back away.  The voice, the tone, the entire mood of reflection, regrets and fulfilled dreams were nothing that I wanted in this new piece.  While there’s no real hiding my particular writing style completely within a narrative, there are tones set by the story that need to be consistent because they affect the voice.  God knows, I don’t even want to lift anything from my own prior work because it’s too easy to feel comfortable there and bring influences picked up in reading back into the writing of a totally different tale.

So if I read–and when I’m writing I don’t read quite as much–it will have to be either something relevant to what I’m writing or a diverse group of styles and shapes that can influence perhaps but not negate the form of what I’m doing.